It is known that denning, fasting black bears, fasting polar bears, and pregnant female polar bears who den possess blood factors that can recycle harmful body waste products back into usable protein for building tissue, and that denning, fasting black bears can continue to build bone when the bear is immobile for months at a time. Upon isolating the substance which controls this phenomena in the bear, there is the possibility that the same can be used to prevent toxic buildups that endanger humans with kidney failure that now require the stressful, expensive treatments of dialysis and kidney transplant to sustain life. The isolate (BDI) also includes the possibility that it can prevent protein breakdown which leads to life threatening situations in humans suffering burns and trauma.
It is believed that such knowledge can lead to strategies to combat bone loss, which afflicts millions of middle aged and elderly people, especially post-menopausal women and astronauts in weightlessness of space. Loss of bone mass in space is one of the major problems that prevents long term space flights by humans.
Bears preparing to enter the denning phase go through a period of hyperphasia during which they eat enough food to store enough fat to last through the denning period. During denning, bears do not eat, do not drink, and do not urinate or defecate. Exiting the den after a four to five month period, the bears resume normal eating patterns. Knowledge and/or the isolate (BDI) may be useful in developing strategies and/or products for the treatment of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia.
Black bears in particular, during their three to five month denning, show a reduction in body temperature of at least 2° C., remain alert and expend energy normally; yet they do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate and exhibit no problems with waste building to toxic levels. Other mammals, including humans, can recycle some waste, but under similar conditions must quickly rid themselves of the rest of their waste or die.
It has been determined that bears in a non-denning state during summer months are induced to produce the isolate (BDI) after 20 days of fasting, even though they are allowed to drink water. Under these circumstances, bears urinated and did not exhibit the tranquility associated with a denning bear.
Other mammals (including deep hibernators such as ground squirrels who continually awaken throughout hibernation and generate waste they must get rid of) break down protein mainly from muscle to supply energy and other essential nutrients for life. This process not only depletes body muscle, it also releases the toxic form of nitrogen as ammonia. Mammals, including humans, convert the ammonia to urea, which is much less toxic but must be eliminated in urine. During denning, black bears also produce urea, but close this loop and recycle the urea nitrogen back into protein. They produce no waste and maintain muscle mass while eliminating the need to urinate or defecate. The process is so efficient that normal urea concentration in blood decreases and body protein increases. The bear is the only animal known that fasts completely (no food or water) yet ends a 100 day or longer fast with a little more protein (lean tissue) than when it started. During the denning period, the bear steadily consumes body fat that had been stored during the pre-denning period.
This unique response extends to maintenance of bone mass. The bear shows no bone loss even when supine over more than 100 days. In contrast, deep hibernators lose bone and exhibit osteoporosis when hibernating. The bear does not develop osteoporosis and is able to maintain skeletal integrity despite the harsh conditions. Under similar stimuli, humans would suffer severe bone loss.
Taken in the context of the foregoing, it is a desirable forward goal in the treatment of human ailments to be able to isolate the bear derived isolate (BDI) which permits the foregoing phenomena in bears, and to translate it into meaningful metabolic and curative processes in the human.
These goals appear possible. For instance, a bile salt produced by the bear has been shown to improve liver function in humans with the fatal disease of primary biliary cirrhosis. In humans, this bile salt also reverses serious rejection reactions against bone marrow transplants. Further, this bile salt, ursodeoxycholic acid, is the most effective dissolver of human gall stones. Thus, a isolate produced by bears has direct positive application to human disorders.
Important to the present invention is the skill of the technician practicing the invention in identifying when the true state of denning exists in the bear and when the denning bear accomplishes the unique management of wastes such that none accumulate.
Experiments and observations directed to studies in denning bears have been under way for more than 23 years. During that time, it has been established that the recycling of body wastes causes the blood ratio of urea to creatinine (U/C) both expressed in mg/dl to decrease from 20 or more (sometimes ranging as high as 70 after eating a high protein diet) to 10 or less—something impossible for any other mammal that is not drinking fluid. A U/C ratio of 10 or less due to a significant decrease in urea and a significant increase in creatinine indicates that recycling of urea is in progress. The low U/C ratio found throughout denning sometimes occurs in wild bears in the fall just before denning. At this point, wild bears have stored enough fat for denning. They stop eating and drinking; complete waste recycling has begun before they enter the den.
The bear continues to degrade amino acids and form urea. In turn, the urea molecule is quickly degraded by transferring nitrogen from it to substances such as pyruvic acid or alpha-ketoglutaric acid to reform amino acids. This latter process is called transamination. The substances necessary for transamination (pyruvic acid and alpha-ketoglutaric acid) are generated from glycerol which has been released from fat. The newly formed amino acids are then reincorporated into protein.
The overall process of urea recycling consists of two processes: 1) formation of urea from amino acids, and 2) reformation of amino acids from urea which are then reincorporated into protein. Since (2) is faster than (1), there is net formation of new protein. Based on our knowledge, no other fasting animal can accomplish this feat.
Some amino acids formed in the bear are: alanine, serine, ornithine, arginine, glycine, leucine, threonine, phenylalanine, and tyrosine. These amino acids are found in such proteins as albumin and fibrinogen.
Humans can recycle only about 25% of the urea they form. The bear, on the other hand, recycles urea back into protein a little faster than it makes it. Thus, its blood urea concentration diminishes even though it does not drink water or urinate. The amino acids that serve as vehicles for urea recycling are ordinarily found in all mammals, but not in the concentrations shown by bears when fasting. Therefore, it is assumed that they may become vehicles to be used with the bear derived isolate when duplicating the bear's unique recycling.
During denning, the kidney of the bear continually forms urine. Upon reaching the urinary bladder, the urine (which contains BDI) is completely absorbed by the wall of the bladder. Thus, in a highly concentrated form, BDI moves across the bladder wall into blood, circulates, and stimulates all tissues of the bear. When compared to the blood of fasting humans, blood of the denning bear differs in concentrations of some amino acids, bear ketones are much lower, and there is a difference in some other essential substances. While concentrations of many of these substances decrease during human fasting; they do not decrease in the bear. Therefore, exact profiles of these known metabolites may have to be added to BDI in order to duplicate the bear's unique recycling in humans.
Recycling urea, the waste product of protein breakdown, back into protein leads to maintenance of lean body mass.
To prevent bone loss, bone remodeling occurs normally while in the supine state. In the human, a supine state inhibits normal bone remodeling and leads to severe loss of calcium and bone.
All of these stages of prior art were possible only by developing the state of the art that permits bears to den in captivity and to design the definitive studies to explain the processes.